FAQs and Community Standards

What is the Cultural Research Network?The Cultural Research Network is an open resource-sharing community of practice for anyone involved in culture-related research.

Our network emphasizes the practice and process of current research, and the opportunities to inform that active work among peers, academics, and fellow professionals. Our collaborative platform provides opportunities to explore project or professional connections, methodological challenges, technological innovations, standards and practices, and shared infrastructure.

Who can join the network?The forum is open to any self-identified cultural researcher, from emerging scholars, to private consultants, to seasoned academics, to researchers or analysts or evaluation staff embedded within nonprofit, governmental, or commercial organizations.

What will happen once I join the CRN?You will be subscribed to a listserv, and will be able to send and receive emails from other CRN members. All messages sent to the listserv are sent to everyone in the network.

What is the CRN Steering Committee?The Cultural Research Network is coordinated and guided by a rotating steering committee. When a spot on the committee becomes available, we request nominations for new steering committee members to join.

Often referred to as “netiquette,” Listserv Etiquette is a set of informal rules and procedures established for users of mailing lists to make these electronic communication tools more enjoyable and less annoying or bothersome.

1. Be sure to include a descriptive subject line. Emails received with no subject line may likely be perceived as spam by an email filter and be deleted before reaching the recipient’s inbox.

2. Responses to many listserv list questions and discussion topics are of interest to the entire list. In these cases, it is appropriate to reply to the listserv list address.

3. Personal replies should be directed to specific individuals rather than to the entire list. Remember to cut and paste the sender’s email address when replying rather than simply hitting the “Reply” button, which sends the response to the entire list. Below are some examples of replies sent to an entire list in the past,

‘Thanks.’

‘Thanks. Hope you are well. All the best.’

‘Yes.’ or ‘No, unfortunately.’

‘I would also.’ (Sent as response to whether additional info was desired)

‘I would like more information. Could you e-mail me directly?’

‘Thanks, this will be very helpful. Sorry for the delay in replying.’

‘Welcome!’ (Response to someone introducing themselves as a new subscriber.

4. If you receive a notice that your original email was ‘rejected,’ or you received a ‘delivery error,’ find out the reason for the rejection before re-sending the message so people do not receive duplicate emails. Often times, the error was in response to a problem with a single recipient’s email, and the message was indeed sent and received by many other list subscribers.

5. Listservs are typically not used for the solicitation, promotion, or sales of commercial products or services. Violators will be warned, then removed from the listserv if they continue this behavior.

6. Listservs are not to be used as personal blogs. There are many free online sites that are designed specifically for posting those random thoughts and ideas, and offering others the opportunity to follow those postings. Listservs, on the other hand, are intended for distributing topic-related information that the list members as a group might benefit from sharing.

7. Be respectful and considerate of your colleagues in your postings. If you disagree or become upset with someone’s response or use of the list, reply to that person directly when appropriate.

8. If the amount of mail from any particular list becomes cumbersome, rather than leaving that list, consider receiving the digest form of the list. Instead of getting each email individually, you will receive a summary email at the end of each day or week.

9. Be aware of the problems caused when using auto-responders or auto-replies to messages received via a mailing list. Please remember to either temporarily turn off your mailing list messages, or set your email auto-replies to not respond to messages from CRN (crn@simplelists.com) when you go on vacation or otherwise has an auto-responder set up for your email address.

Many members realize that mistakes do happen and choose to simply hit the ‘delete’ button when many e-mails are received that are of no interest or do not apply to them. However, if everyone would consider the guidelines above regarding e-mail and listserv use, cyberspace might be a more pleasant experience for everyone! Thank you for your cooperation and consideration of these guidelines.